Deus Ex Machina
by Leonine One 252
Summary: This is a story of convenient plot devices...and Kimahri! Yay!


My first FFX fic...mwahahahahaHAHAHAHAHA_HAHAHAHAHAHA**HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA**_!!!

This will be...somewhat strange. Disclaimer: I don't own anything in this fic except Lionhearted (see my bio), me, and the convenient plot device that every author is entitled to.

**Deus ex Machina**

Somewhere in nowhere at some point in time where (nowhere) time does not exist (basically, an important-sounding and mysterious yet unimportant place that the author is too lazy to name), the abstract non-entities who (no one) govern the turn of events in minor realities panicked. "How can this happen?" one did not say frantically. "It's not supposed to happen, but the humans are doing it!" another did not say. "Wait! It's alright! It is for the good of the continuation of the story!" yet another did not say, hoping to be of some relief. "No it's not! As far as the _competent_ humans are concerned, that second reality doesn't even exist!" retorted not the second one. "What! How can that be?" the third one didn't ask. "They have rejected it as a failure! They have blocked it out of their minds and denied its existence!" explained not the second one. "Greetings...what happened? Why is every/no one so panicked?" asked not a fourth one who (no one) just didn't come back from vacation from reality. "The Hero Doctrine has failed where it should not! This is not supposed to happen! The Hero Doctrine is _always_ supposed to apply under these circumstances!" the first one did not yell, almost hysterically. "The Hero Doctrine has..._failed_?" said not the fourth one shakily.

_Meanwhile_

"Wow...they actually _did_ kill off Tidus. Oh well. I never liked him anyway," said Leonine One (from now on referred to as Leo). "Yeah! Maybe now they can do things from Kimahri's point of view!" joked a man with a lion's ears and tail. "Yup. Kimahri rules!" Leo said happily. "And so unappreciated! Everyone always goes for the main characters...but not us! We go for the people _we_ like, even though they tend to be a little neglected..." said Lionhearted. Tidus would return at the end of FFX2, but as far as Leo and Lionhearted were concerned, that "sequel" didn't exist. It played dress-up, for curry's sake!

_On Spira_

"Just...one more thing: the people we have lost...or the dreams that have faded...never forget them." The entire stadium cheered as Yuna finished her speech and stepped away from the platform with her trusted friends, Kimahri, Rikku, Wakka, and Lulu. "Don't worry, ya? We're the heroes. The convenient plot device _has_ to start working pretty soon. Tidus will be back, ya?" comforted Wakka, which caused Yuna to suddenly look very sad, which caused Lulu to pummel Wakka with her Onion Knight. "Ow! What! I was just trying to cheer Yuna up a little, ya?" said the former blitzer. "Don't feel so sad, Yunie. We're all here for you," comforted Rikku. Kimahri said nothing and held Yuna as she leaned on him for support. "Thank you. You have all been a great help to me." At that moment, Leo and Lionhearted approached them and began to speak. They were cut off, however, by a suspicious black mage. "Who are you and what do you want?" asked Lulu, not hostile but definitely not friendly, either. "I'm the author of this story, Leo, and this is my friend/other self, Lionhearted," said the strange person. The heroes just stood there, looking confused. Leo sighed, and said, "You know what, I'm too lazy to explain, so I'm just going to make you know." Reality shifted. Yuna was the first one to speak. "But you have broken your own code. You hate to involve yourself in your stories. It's unprofessional," said Yuna. "Well, Heheh...fanfictional urges finally made me crack. I guess this makes me a hypocrite, huh?" said an embarrassed Leo. "It doesn't matter. We have to be here for this fic to work anyway," interrupted Lionhearted. Kimahri looked questioningly at the part man, part lion...um...guy. "Hey. I'm Lionhearted. It's a great honor to meet you, Kimahri. You're our favorite character in Final Fantasy X, ya know," said Lionhearted cheerfully.

The Ronso known as Kimahri contemplated the human (mostly) before him. He was about nine inches shorter than he was. But at least they were both taller than most other people. He seems friendly enough...and he smells fine; no danger detected. Little did he know that Lionhearted was analyzing him the same way he was. "Kimahri think lion-man and companion not threat," said the little giant (does that make sense?). "Great! But we need to get back on track. Things have gone wrong. For one thing, the main hero of the story just died. It wouldn't be such a big deal if this was a tragedy, a war movie, or FFVII, but it's not. He's the hero. In this kind of a story, the Hero Doctrine should never fail. Convenient plot devices are supposed to be the life blood of any story," said the almighty author. "Um, what's the Hero Doctrine?" asked Rikku. Before Leo could explain, Lionhearted cut in. "The Hero Doctrine is basically something that makes it so that no matter how badly the hero gets beaten up, mangled, melted, burned, or anything else that would kill a normal person ten times over, that hero will always survive, recover, and kick ass." Leo stated, "Bluntly stated but pretty much true. There are other things like the Villain Doctrine, the Chance for the Neglected Device, the Deus ex Machina (Latin for "god from the machine"), and other good stuff. Anyway, the point is that the Hero Doctrine malfunctioned and we have been chosen to find out why and to prevent it from ever happening again," explained Leo. Convenient plot device: so they embarked on a journey to seek the truth because the author doesn't want to think of a good way to start off their little adventure. For tradition's sake, they started off at Besaid.

There was not very much happening at the start of their journey except when they visited the trials because the two Leonine Ones found them fascinating. "Kimahri beginning to think this wild goose chase," stated the blue/red mage. "It's not. Oh, and I forgot to mention that you're the new hero so your life is pretty much guaranteed unless the Doctrine fails again." With that, they continued walking, leaving a shocked Kimahri to stare dumbfounded into the back of their heads. "Hey, you coming or not?" urged a concerned Lionhearted. So various things attacked Kimahri because he was the hero, but Kimahri wasn't affected because he was the hero and had a defense of 255. Then various magical creatures used magic to hurt him, but he wasn't because he was the hero and had a magic defense of 255, and every other stat at 255 except luck because he didn't need luck, courtesy of the Hero Doctrine. Basically Kimahri was invincible, courtesy of the Hero Doctrine and the protective powers of Dog/Wolf (ignore that last part).

Our new group of heroes traveled to Mushroom Rock, where they were attacked by a bunch of moving mushrooms. This was no problem, however, because Leo liked mushrooms. The same went when they were attacked by broccoli, celery, and bell peppers, consecutively. However, they did not expect what came up against them next. As they continued along the road they were set upon by a hoard of disgusting, writhing legion of asparagus and eggplants. "AAACK!!! Eggplants and asparagus. So evil, and not in a good way, either," shuddered Leo and Lionhearted simultaneously. Kimahri took confidence in his newfound invulnerability and charged the evil vegetables. "Kimahri, no! What if the Hero Doctrine fails again?" Rikku yelled after Kimahri. Then Kimahri retreated with his paws over his mouth, looking very sick. "Evil vegetables not affected by Kimahri's Poisonproof," said Kimahri and got very, very sick. Wakka held them off at a long distance with his ball while Lulu used Firaga Fury over and over and over again. Rikku threw a barrage of grenades into the fray, which only eliminated a fraction of the enemy. Kimahri was very mad about the poison incident and used Nova, which took out about half of the evil, disgusting abominations. "This is getting out of hand," said Leo. Lionhearted finally decided to use one of his strong attacks, Sol Ignited. A golden aura surrounded the lion-man as the constellation Leo converged and shot towards the ground in an impressive display of pyrotechnics to rival that of the Aeons. The light faded to reveal a lion, charging a highly concentrated mass of solar energy, while Lionhearted charged at the hoard and unleashed a fury of strikes at them, comparable to Squall's Lion Heart with Haste, on steroids, Berserked, and boosted ten times. When he was done he used a very powerful version of jump and charged up into the air as the lion unleashed the ball of energy, which exploded everywhere and sent a barrage of Alexander style missiles into their midst. Lionhearted's sword came down from the sky and disappeared, revealing his own glyph with the author's own set of characters. As he dropped he began to gain speed and started to glow with an intensity like the sun. When the ball of hot plasma and energy impacted the ground it unleashed a deafening boom and a great, golden mushroom cloud. Convenient plot device: out of the chaos emerged Lionhearted, completely unscathed.

Then the Villain Doctrine took effect. Villains are not that easily defeated, even when they seem like they have. "Eek! They've returned!" panicked Leo. The abominations have regrouped and combined to form _one giant eggsparagus plant_! "Deus Ex Machina!" shouted Leo. Somewhere a giant device of doom, destruction, and convenience came to life and sent a giant beam of energy at the battle's location. It rained death and destruction upon the horrible abomination. Unfortunately the Plot Twist Effect also took place. Convenient plot device: the beam caused a large disturbance in the magical flux and warped them to Zanarkand Dome while knocking them out.

The heroes awakened to a terrible sight: Yunalesca and a convention of white-haired FF villains! "Well, well. Look what the kat warped in," commented Ultimecia. "What do you suppose we do with them?" fake-asked Sephiroth. "Oh, what a difficult decision. So many possibilities, so few victims," hissed Kuja. "SIMPLE. KILL," said Fujin. "Fujin? But you're not a major villain! You even turn good towards the end of the game!" pointed out Lulu. The rest of the FFX people stared at her. "What? It's a good game! How do you think I got my Space dolls?"

"Enough. We will destroy them by means of our blindingly white albino powers," commanded Yunalesca. "AHAHAHAHAHA!!! This will be fun. We will destroy these akkursed lokusts and sentence them to death beyond death!" cackled Ultimecia. "We'll destroy them with a giant Meteor spell," said Sephiroth with a creepy smile. "We will extract their Eidolons," said Kuja with a disturbing giggle. Everyone stopped and stared at him. "What? Why do they always look at me like that when I say that!" complained Kuja. They began. Sephiroth cast Meteor while Ultimecia cast Apocalypse and Kuja cast Flare Star and Ultima. Unfortunately the Villain Doctrine decided to fail then so they were easily defeated.

"Hmm...so two plot devices failed now. I wonder why..."pondered Leo. "Kimahri found something!" came a call. They came and saw a chart. "It evil plan for foiling great tradition of authoring," said Kimahri. So this was the source of all this (not) trouble. "Villains gain fans by being very feminine or very cool. Fans become fanfics writers. Many write bad stories. Throw off balance of good and bad stories. Plot devices fail like Kimahri at grammar," explained everyone's (me and the rabid Kimahri fans) favorite Ronso. "So basically, they kicked their own asses," said Lionhearted. "It's actually very ironic. The Villain Doctrine says that even though they are hard to defeat, the villains are always beaten in the end. So this is actually a kind of paradox," said Fujin. "Whoa, you can speak normally?" asked Lulu. "OBVIOUS. SPEAK. NORMAL. SOMETIMES," said Fujin, back to her regular self. "So this whole thing is resolved? Nothing was really broken. It was all a stupid parody by a rambling author at 2:19 in the morning," said a relieved Yuna. "...pretty much," said a hurt Leo and Lionhearted. "I can't help but wonder WHERE THE HECK IS WAKKA!!!?" yelled Rikku.

Somewhere on Mt. Gagazet Wakka yelled, "Hey! Someone there? Anyone! Lu? Kimahri? Mommy? It's freezing here, ya?"

"We'll find him eventually, convenient plot device," said Lulu casually. "Kimahri feel neglected. Even as hero, Kimahri did not get many lines in story," said a sad Kimahri. The two authors then decided to dish out some much needed justice. Reality shifted. Leo and Lionhearted held up a giant banner that read: "WE LOVE KIMAHRI!!!" and smiled really wide. All the Ronsos joined the rabid Kimahri fans and started drooling at the mere sight of him. Biran and Yenke bowed at his feet and groveled. "Biran not worthy!" and "Yenke _love_ Kimahri! Yenke sorry for ever hurting Kimahri!" and other similar comments followed. This continued for many, many hours, with a Kimahri themed parade and a world-wide holiday named in his honor. Finally, Kimahri gets some LUV!

The moral: beware of overusing convenient plot devices. They're almost as evil as FFXI fics.

**The End**

Done! Review! I command thee under threat of death by mental images of Seymour/Kuja!


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